Seph, dressed as a Star Trek commander, visits from Northern California The Star Trek & Sci-Fi Summit at the Marriott Convention Center in Burbank.Seph preferred to keep his last name private.

Seph, dressed as a Star Trek commander, visits from Northern California The Star Trek & Sci-Fi Summit at the Marriott Convention Center in Burbank.Seph preferred to keep his last name private. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer)

Steve Appleford, steve.appleford@latimes.com

Adam Malin was 13 when he went into business, and his chosen profession was the business of sci-fi and comic books. This was back in 1971, years before his proliferation of fan gatherings to celebrate the likes of "Star Trek" and "Xena," an effort Malin and his partner continue to run through their Glendale-based Creation Entertainment.

After two decades in New York, the company relocated here from New York in 1992 and now hosts some 30 major entertainment events across North America, including last weekend's “Grand Slam Convention: Star Trek and Sci-Fi Summit” at Bob Hope Airport. The gathering included a full-cast reunion with the actors from “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” while fans waited in lines for memorabilia, to converse freely in Klingon and to show off their often meticulous costumes.

“I'm still a huge star Trek fan after all these years,” says Malin, 56, who has raised two children in Glendale. “I've been watching for 47 years and loving it since it first started.”

In recent years, the company has hosted gatherings for fans of Xena, Lord of the Rings and all things sci-fi. From Creation's offices in Glendale, the company's 15-person staff also organizes a health and fitness expo.

Malin's parents were already vendors at antique shows when he attended his first comics-themed swap meet in New York. He found hundreds of fans there much like him, and an idea was born. With a bank loan co-signed by his parents, Malin and partner Gary Berman rented space and had Marvel Comics creators Jim Steranko and Stan Lee as guests of honor.

At least 1,000 people turned up. The company has continued to grow ever since, coinciding with the rise of fantasy films as a dominant force.

“We felt like social outcasts back then, and now we feel very socially forward,” Malin says. “We were waiting for the rest of the world to catch up to what we knew all along — which is imaginative and fantastic fiction would find its day.”

Malin acknowledges it's not cheap to attend Creation events, but argues that a fan will get more for his money at 12-hour film and comics events than he ever could in a movie ticket.

“There has never been such a wealth of genre entertainment and intellectual property,” says Malin. “It's a great time to be a fan. It's never been greater.”